Compared to my two previous notes on developments in the PC(USA) and the PCA this recap on developments in the Church of Scotland will be relatively short since their process is much more focused at the moment.

You may remember that the last General Assembly dealt with a protest filed by a group of presbyters who considered their presbytery’s action to concur with a church’s call to a partnered gay man to pastor the church to be out of order.  The GA upheld the presbytery decision and denied the protest.  Along with the protest there was also an overture filed by another presbytery to establish some standards for ordained office regarding lifestyle and sexual orientation.  Instead of acting on that the Assembly chose to structure an environment to engage the church in discussion over this issue.  This environment includes a Special Commission to study the issue and report back to the 2011 Assembly, a moratorium on installations and ordinations of partnered same-sex individuals as officers of the church, and a ban on officers of the church talking publicly about the issue.  The moratorium and the gag order are for the two years the Special Commission will be working.

Well yesterday brought news that Lord Hodge will chair the special commission.  Lord Hodge is a Judge of the Supreme Court and was previously Procurator to the General Assembly, among other legal and judicial positions.  The news article also lists an additional four members of this nine member commission:

Other members of the commission include the Rev John Chalmers, former minister of Edinburgh’s Palmerston Place Church; advocate Ruth Innes, a member at Palmerston Place Church; former Moderator the Very Rev Dr Sheilagh Kesting; and the Rev Peter Graham, former clerk to the Edinburgh presbytery.

Thanks to the Edinburgh Evening News for this, but I look forward to a formal press release from the CofS Newsroom, or a more detailed media article listing the full membership of the commission.

A sidebar here, (pun intended) on the leaders of these Church of Scotland special commissions.  For those of you keeping score at home, this is the third special commission in three years that I am aware of.  The first of these, created by the 2006 General Assembly, was the Special Commission on Structure and Change which reported back to the 2008 Assembly.  What I find interesting was that commission was headed up by Lord Hodge’s colleague on the high court, Lord Brodie.  Not every commission is headed up by a distinguish justice because the third commission, and one that is currently working, the Special Commission on the Third Article is chaired by the Moderator of the 2006 Assembly, the Very Rev. Dr. Alan D. McDonald.  (And if you want more on the Structure and Change and Third Article stuff, you can check out my earlier discussion of all that.)  But in summary, you have to be impressed with the church’s integration in the culture to be able to get such secular leaders onto GA commissions.  (And you have to wonder how they have time to do it.)

Finally, I was looking back and I probably should close the loop on one more related item.  Back at the beginning of September the Presbytery of Hamilton voted to admit to training for the ministry an individual whose lifestyle was the subject of the new discussion in the church.  The issue at the time was focused on whether this presbytery action was a violation of the GA action, in spirit if not in letter.  Subsequently, the individual, Mr. Dmitri Ross, withdrew his application after the controversy erupted.  In a Time article he is quoted as saying:

“I do not wish, and have never sought, to be a cause of division within the Church I love so dearly. Therefore, after much heartfelt deliberation, and after much prayerful consideration, I have decided to withdraw as a full-time candidate in training for ministry of word and sacrament in the Church of Scotland.”

Like the other ordination debates, all of this is a point in the journey, or a step in a process, that will play out.  Stay tuned…